Elemental Cheese: Gunpla Review: HG Gouf Origin (Tactical Demonstration Type)

Trying to cut-back on toy purchases, since I'm saving up for a Japan Trip. Sooo that means digging into a kit I finished building way back in December. It's actually the Christmas Gift I asked for during the company Christmas Party. We're going to take a look at HGUC Gouf Tactical Demonstration Type. Quite a mouthful!

Apologies dear readers for a horrifically edited photo

I don't have much background knowledge for this version of the Gouf. The original Gouf had a normal right manipulator and a 5 barrel hand gun as seen in the photo below (shared with the Origin Novel).

Image from MAQH.net

This version is supposed to be the prototype for the actual Gouf. So the magically extending heat rod is an enclosed barrel containing the actual length of the whip. And it has a 3 barrel machine gun. I actually love the realistic take for the UC line up with this Origin line.

Aesthetics

Design-wise, It melds the mechanical realistic design of real grades into the look of the MG 2.0 Gouf. As such it features a comically large snout (for the head) to a functional looking body with a nice amount of surface details to break up the blues.

Minimalist design, Maximum surface detail

Like all UC stuff (pre-unicorn animation wise), it does not have fancy backpacks or glowing orb thingies. It's nice and utilitarian. Side profile is pretty lean with no protruding backpack of sorts and the back is pretty clean as well. Different (aside from the arms) is the head, as the monoeye can seem to go all the way to the back as it has cuts for it (shown in picture somewhere).

Here you go!

Again detail-wise, it's the closest thing we can get to a real grade gouf (since nothing popped out after they shown the sketch years ago). Color-wise, the gouf uses the color pallete of the Gouf Custom. Owe to it's simple design, there are no stickers other than the mono-eye. The orange bit in the stomach is an actual clear part.

His stomach is the same color after eating mexican food

As you have noticed, he comes with all the nice decals. Again reminiscent of a Real Grade, but not as overkill. It breaks up the swathes of blue nicely. Also it seems this is Ramba Ral's personal unit as you get decals containing his crest and letters.

And speaking of stickers, you get 3 eye stickers, 2 of which has this awesome looking glowing effect. It makes the head less goofy (hehe) looking since the mono eye slants a bit up.

No more puns or I'll harm you

It's not for everyone of course. Most people I know like the fancier suit designs, but for me, the 0079 suits are perfect as they seem to be grounded in reality. One thing I can't show in the pictures is the feel of the thing. It's rock solid and hefty. Even more solid that the 1/100 Barbatos I reviewed. It has the same solidity as the UC MG 2.0 stuff.

Articulation

The design of these UC 0079 mono-eyes tends to not be the friendliest, articulation wise. But the redesign (it's a lot more angular) and advances in engineering allows it to movemore akin to an action figure.

The head alone has 3 joints. The head is connected to the neck via a ball-joint. Then the neck has a hinge that connects to a bit in the torso that's also jointed. As such it can look around very well, despite the over-sized snout.

It cant quite rotate it's head 360, but has enough to look to it's side.

As with most modern mono-eye of zaku origin, the eye has a lever at the bottom to move it side to side,

The torso has so many joints. The outer pectorals can move out to give the shoulders more room to move.

The torso has just the right gaps to allow it to move in many different ways. I don't remember if it's ball or a ball hinge combination, but man, it can belly dance.

One of the weakness of the Gouf design (articulation-wise) has always been the shoulders. They are large and bulky. Here they are connected to the shoulder via a double jointed hinge, which allows it to move up a little bit more. It's still large enough to hinder movement though. The shoulder polycap now also swings upward. The rest are standard joints by this point.

The second weakness of the design is the waist armor. Their design tends to not leave much room for the hips to move. But this kit's design takes the sliding side-skirts of the MG and RG, and incorporates it into a more simple design where the ball joint slides in a track. Also the front skirts are connected to the side-skirts. And the hip joint and swing forward... rather needlessly.

The thighs-however, have very limited rotation.

it's fairly modest

The leg and feet design tends to hinder movement for the Zakus, and it's no different here for the Gouf. Also for some reason, the foot joint is designed to slide, when you move the "toe"

Overall, pretty decent. The articulation is a massive leap from the 1st HG Gouf. The design hinders it a bit though, so you can't quite get as dynamic poses as the ankle tilts are no where near as good nor the shoulder give a range of movement that looks good.

Weapons and Extras

The Gouf normally has all it's weapons built in. In this case, it's mostly the same. The left hand is a 3-barreled machine gun for saluting Hydra.

Hail Hydra... yep he's trying not to make a Hitler joke

It's right hand features a butt plug (when the whip is retracted) and the actual whip. The whip itself is made of bendy plastic that's not quite a polycap material. It's feels like the same material as the pipes in this kit.

Butt plug???

The whip can hold its shape pretty well.

It's flexible enough to roughly wrap around something, though not as tight as an actual wire (like in the gouf custom).

Nope. No hentai jokes please

Now comes the unique stuff the kit can do. It has the same arm swapping functionality as with the HG mobile worker. And it comes with 2 hands: An open palm and a holding things hand. Interestingly enough, these hands have hollow areas in them.

Venom Snake Approves

To attach, you need to detach the whip arm (you only get a right arm) but flipping the clips up and pulling out the rod end.

too easy

And now he can have an actual hand like the original Gouf.

On top of that, you get a shield and 2 axes: One normal sized for actual wielding and a small one to hide in the shield/skirt.

The small axe has a peg so you can store it in the shield.

The new bulky hand does not hinder articulation of the right hand at all.

It's a pretty decent pile of stuff, considering the actual animation gouf has less. You do not get a heat sword though, you'll need the Gouf Revive or Gouf R35 for that.

Size Comparison

Being a 0079 suit, it's suppose to stand in the same height as any 18 meter gundam. Here with the Build burning (they share the same storage box), you can see that the heads match, but the Gouf is so much bulkier.

Denial Gundam is quite a bit taller, but again also much leaner than the Gouf. They also share the same box.

Enough of this Gouf harem!

Summary

Bandai could have made this kit so much simpler, but they didn't. The build is very engaging, and since the hands are so different, it does not feel repetitive at all. For the same amout of money as the Build Burning, you get a kit that's a lot more solid and substantial. These Origin kits seem to be a lot more solid than a normal HG, and a lot more robust than an RG. You can manhandle the kit and no parts will randomly pop out. If you are a fan of the UC0079 mono eyes, I highly recommend getting this kit. I would assumt the Zakus as as solid as this, but I need to get my hands on one to find out. And I do look forward to the day I have the budget to buy one.